


Tree Rings

by contrequirose



Series: miscellaneous musings (drabbles, ficlets, and other short things) [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Multi, astrid and eodwulf join the mighty nein au, ikithon is dead ding dong the wizard is dead, prompt was first kiss post greater restoration because we're all soft about these folks, this isnt how transmutation works in dnd but again my house my rules, way too many dashes but that's life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 03:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19033555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrequirose/pseuds/contrequirose
Summary: “I think –“ he gets out before he gets another splash of thick mud to the face, and he has to scrape it away from his eyes and mouth and ears before he tries to talk again.“I don’t think that worked.”Astrid, covered in black mud across the lab, glares, a dollop dripping off her hair and onto the shoulder of her ratty work clothes.Eodwulf, who’s only half covered in muck because he had the god-granted sense to throw up a shield spell, raises his eyebrows, and looks at the table.“I mean, I think it did, actually. Maybe not the way we wanted it to, but it worked?” He gestures at the table, and from out of the muck Caleb can just see a glint of gold.When he uncovers it from the dirt, he holds in his hand a simple ring of gold, thin and intricately sketched.He grins, wide with abandon, and tucks it carefully inside of a coat pocket.(ficlet request from mossystep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :3)





	Tree Rings

**Author's Note:**

> in this house we love homebrew magic systems and also best friends to lovers and recovery

“I think –“ he gets out before he gets another splash of thick mud to the face, and he has to scrape it away from his eyes and mouth and ears before he tries to talk again.

“I don’t think that worked.”

Astrid, covered in black mud across the lab, glares, a dollop dripping off her hair and onto the shoulder of her ratty work clothes.

Eodwulf, who’s only half covered in muck because he had the god-granted sense to throw up a shield spell, raises his eyebrows, and looks at the table.

“I mean, I think it did, actually. Maybe not the way we wanted it to, but it worked?” He gestures at the table, and from out of the muck Caleb can just see a glint of gold.

When he uncovers it from the dirt, he holds in his hand a simple ring of gold, thin and intricately sketched.

He grins, wide with abandon, and tucks it carefully inside of a coat pocket.

“Alright, so – notes?”

Astrid rolls her eyes and waves her hand, and the mud lifts off them both, vanishing into the energy she pumps into a Prestidigitation spell. For now, though, she leaves the mud that coats the lab table.

“I think – we succeeded in purifying the gold and other metals from the dirt, but instead of the dirt just vanishing, or destroying itself, it morphed with ambient water in the air and then expanded rapidly –“

“Exploded might be more apt.”

“- exploded, instead.”

He nods, and scrawls that on a scrap piece of parchment. He can tuck that into his spellbook later, when he’s not at risk of getting unmentionables on the pages.

Eodwulf trails a finger through the residue on top of the transmutation circle they were using, and grimaces. “I think it’s fixable, if we tie the outer layer of the circle to the void instead of the air.”

It’s – obvious in retrospect.

He nods, and Astrid wipes the table clean with another casting of Prestidigitation.

He slowly carves out the air symbols in the outer layer and adds in void, and then steps back, grabbing another bucket of dirt from Caduceus’s garden.

With Wulf’s assistance, he dumps the dirt in the center of the circle.

He takes a deeper breath, and watches with fond amusement as his friends step far back, shield spells up.

The energy he sends crackling across the circles' layers is a vibrant gold, and for a second he’s connected to the stone and earth and power in one continuous circuit, before he lets go and steps back, his own shield spell at the ready.

Unneeded this time, though, because with a flare of gold the dirt in the circle disappears and leaves a golden metal ring in its place.

_Wunderbar._

His hands twitch, at his sides, and he grins at Astrid, who grins back.

No dirt, no much this time – he still needs to take a bath, because it feels like there’s a thin film of dirt on his skin and normally he wouldn’t mind it, as dirty as he usually is, but these clothes are newer and soft and feel bad with dirt folded into the creases.

The ring is solid in his hands when he picks it up, and peering at the band – his detailing succeeded this time, and he can trace the faint lines of wildflowers and curling sylvan script on the band.

They repeat it once more, and then he has in his pocket three near-identical rings.

He is – planning something, maybe.

Astrid and Wulf have been back with him, back in their own minds, for six months and fourteen days and nine hours and thirteen minutes and some odd seconds, and in this house away from the war he’s glad of that fact every single day.

But –

It’s not the way it was before, because they can never be those kids again.

But, he thinks quietly, maybe they can be something different.

 

It is later, then, that he is clean and wearing his nicer purple coat, and sitting in the garden under the lights of the daylight jars above them. it’s dark as always in Rosohna, but he and Beau and Caduceus had started withering without sunlight within the first few weeks in the city, leading to Jester to implement forced sunlight time. He doesn’t mind it.

It’s peaceful, up here.

Peaceful, with Astrid and Eodwulf leaning against one of the parapets near him, her head in his lap, his hands making short and miniature braids in her hair as he sits to the side and flips pages in his book, one hand fingering the rings in his pocket.

They aren’t wedding rings. He does not –

Weddings are romantic and hopeful and have a basis in law and he is neither of those things and he is entirely outside the third.

He clears his throat, and the others look to him, equally fond as what he feels bubbling up in his chest.

“You have both been back for – a while, _ja_? I think it’s pretty evident that you aren’t on the verge of falling back in Ikithon’s clutches. And I’ve been –“

He is never this forward, usually, but it feels like time is trickling through fingers he cannot force close.

He does not want this chance to pass him by.

“I’ve been thinking. About what – what we were, before Ikithon broke us.”

Eodwulf’s hands clench, in his lap, and Astrid winces slightly from where he pulls on his hair. Wulf glances down and relaxes immediately, face darkening.

“Because I’m still –“

This might not be the right time for this.

(There will never be a right time for this.)

“I’m in love with you?”

Gods.

Why did he say that like a question.

“I’m in love with you,” he states, and then adds, quickly, “Both of you, I mean, in case that wasn’t clear.”

They’ve never told each other they love them before. Not – not like this. Not in-love.

They’ve loved each other since they were children, since they were teenagers getting a chance at a dream that would fail them.

He blinks, and swipes at a stray tear that falls down his cheek.

When he glances back up at them, Astrid is sitting up again, face – she’s smiling, he thinks, and that’s the last thought he gets before she’s practically tackling him, peppering butterfly light kisses across his cheekbones, only fueled further by the cherry shade of red he knows that he’s turning.

After she moves away, a minute later, Eodwulf draws closer and then draws him into a kiss that he dissolves into, losing himself to the softness of the other man’s lips.

 

They should probably move this – away from Caduceus’s garden, he thinks absentmindedly, and Wulf certainly has that in mind, because in an instant both he and Astrid are hoisted up and carried back to his-and-their room, Jester winking at them and Beauregard yelling “Nice!” as they pass.

 

He gives them the rings, an eternity of happiness and closeness later, and they match.

 

 

 


End file.
